Sunday Devotional: Psalm 100:2

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with rejoicing.

Psalm 100 is a sort of sister-psalm to Psalm 95, which we looked at last week. It too is a call to worship, an exhortation to come before God, to sing His praise, and to give thanks to Him. Verse 3 even mentions the fact that we are His people and the flock of His pasture, something that came up in last week’s verses from Psalm 95.

This week, I want us to consider what the psalm means when it commands us to serve the Lord with gladness. Joy and gladness are a constant theme for this psalm. Our worship of God should never be grudging or miserable. When we consider what we deserve, the fact that the Lord would permit us into His presence to acknowledge His goodness and greatness should make us smile.

While the words “come before Him” imply the context of corporate worship, and that is probably the primary context of the psalm, these words apply to every moment of our lives. Indeed, if we are living sacrifices, and totally given over to the Lord, then everything we do should be an act of worship. We should live “in the presence of the Lord”–that is, fully conscious of the fact that He is God, He made us, and we are His. So when we read that we are to “serve the Lord with gladness,” I don’t think this means just in whatever capacity we might serve God on a Sunday morning, or in our church ministry. This speaks of everything we do, all of which should somehow seek to serve God. Whether it’s our nine-to-five jobs, housework, schoolwork–if we truly do everything to the glory of God, then everything we do is in His service. Remembering this might help us with our attitude to the mundane aspects of life. Even the things that seem drudgery and unimportant take on a whole new significance and meaning when we do them as service to the Lord.

I pray that we would truly seek to serve the Lord with gladness, and as we give ourselves totally to Him, that we would indeed come before Him every day with rejoicing.

Have a great week!